The market for personal portable electronic devices, for example, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDA's), digital cameras, and music playback devices (MP3), is very competitive. Manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and third party providers have all attempted to find features that appeal to the consumer. For example, service providers are continually looking to improve cell phone reception and access to the internet for down loading of information, music, and the like. Third party providers are constantly searching for the additional item that functions well with the manufacture's product. Manufactures are constantly improving their product with each model in the hopes it will appeal to the consumer more than a competitor's product. Many times these manufacture's improvements do not relate directly to the functionality of the product.
The look and feel of personal portable electronics devices is now a key product differentiator and one of the most significant reasons that consumers choose specific models. From a business standpoint, these outstanding designs (form and appearance) increase market share and margin.
Consumers are enamored with sleek designs and other customizable features, e.g., housing color or form factor. These features reflect personal style. Consumers select them for some of the same reasons that they select clothing styles, clothing colors, and fashion accessories. These two worlds have not merged because consumers have multiple sets of clothing and generally only one personal electronic device (perhaps of each type), and this device has a single defined color or shape. In short, consumers have a very limited ability to match shapes of personal electronics devices to their clothing, their accessories, their car, or their mood. Plastic snap-on covers for devices such as cell phones and MP3 players can be purchased in pre-defined patterns and colors. These snap-on covers are quite popular, and yet they provide a very limited customization capability.
Electronic devices are highly individualized, with users desiring to customize their devices to reflect their personalities and feelings. This desire extends to functionality also. For example, users may prefer to have a device with a certain type of keyboard and a certain type of display that are not found on the same commercially available device. Or, the user may wish to upgrade from one type of speaker to another.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an electronic device including a base portable electronic device having add-on components that may be joined with the base portable electronic device. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.